United States Navy ships

• Los Angeles class (attack submarines: 28 in active service, 34 retired of 62 built)
• Seawolf class (attack submarines: 3 in active service of 3 planned)
• Virginia class (attack submarines: 21 in active service of 48 planned)
• Ohio class (ballistic missile submarines: 14 in active service of 24 planned)
  • (Ohio class converted to guided missile submarines: 4 in active service)

Future requirements

In a 2012 study called the "Force Structure Assessment", the Navy determined a post-2020 battle-force requirement of 306 ships.^[19]

• 12 fleet ballistic missile submarines
• 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers
• 48 nuclear-powered attack submarines
• 0-4 nuclear-powered cruise missile submarines
• 88 large, multi-mission, surface combatants
• 52 small, multi-role, surface combatants
• 33 amphibious landing ships
• 29 combat logistics force ships
• 33 support vessels

Historically significant vessels

The U.S. Navy has operated a number of vessels important to both United States and world naval history:

• Charlestown, Massachusetts
  , as the oldest commissioned warship afloat.
• American War of Independence. This battle is famous in part for Bonhomme Richard's commander John Paul Jones, when called upon to surrender his sinking ship by the captain of the more heavily armed British frigate HMS Serapis
  by replying, "Sir, I have not yet begun to fight!", before defeating and capturing the Serapis.
• Horatio Nelson is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age."^[20][21]
• opening of Japan to the West and the creation of the Open Door Policy
  .
• USS Monitor and CSS Virginia are together known for participating in the first engagement between two steam-powered ironclads, known as the Battle of Hampton Roads, on 9 March 1862. Monitor was the first ironclad built by the U.S. Navy and its design introduced the rotating gun turret to naval warfare.
• USS Alligator (1862) was the first submarine built by the U.S. Navy. The submarine sank in 1863 while being towed during a storm and never saw combat. Though not a U.S. Navy vessel, the Confederate H. L. Hunley (from the same war and era) was the first successful combat submarine.
• single-ship action known as the Battle of Cherbourg (1864) during the American Civil War on 19 June 1864, off Cherbourg, France
  .
• USS Maine (ACR-1) In January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during a time of local insurrection and civil disturbances. Three weeks later, on 15 February at 9:40 p.m., an explosion on board the Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor. The explosion was a precipitating cause of the Spanish–American War that began in April 1898.
• USS Olympia (C-6) is a protected cruiser that became famous as the flagship of Commodore George Dewey at the victorious Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish–American War in 1898, which lead directly to the United States annexing the Philippines from 1899 to 1946. Olympia has been preserved as a museum ship to the present day.
• USS Holland (SS-1) was the first submarine commissioned in the U.S. Navy.
• USS Connecticut (BB-18) was the lead ship of her class of six battleships. She served as flagship the Great White Fleet, the popular nickname for the U.S. Navy battle fleet that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909. This dramatic show of force was presented by order of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to demonstrate to the rest of the world America's military power and blue-water navy capability.
• USS South Carolina (BB-26) was the lead ship of her class, and, when commissioned in 1910, was the first American modern "dreadnought" battleship, a type of battleship armed with eight or more major caliber guns, pioneered by the British Royal Navy, which made all previous battleships obsolete.
• USS Texas (BB-35) is notable for being the first US battleship to become a permanent museum ship, the first battleship declared to be a US National Historic Landmark, the only remaining World War I–era dreadnought battleship, and the only remaining capital ship to have served in both World Wars.
• collier
  USS Jupiter. She was also the U.S. Navy's first electrically propelled ship.
• Allison incident
  in Nanking, caused U.S. opinion to turn against the Japanese.
• air support to ground troops, transporting aircraft, and forming the core of hunter-killer groups which sought out and sank enemy submarines
  .
• USS Reuben James (DD-245) was a Clemson-class destroyer was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in a case of mistaken identity, during the period of neutrality five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor entered the United States into World War II. Many consider it the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in the European theater of World War II. The ship's sinking provoked a furious outburst in the United States, especially when Germany refused to apologize, instead countering that the destroyer was operating in what Germany considered to be a war zone and had suffered the consequences
• USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship, best known for her cataclysmic and dramatic sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the event that brought about U.S. involvement in World War II. The USS Arizona Memorial is constructed over the shattered hull, which still contains the remains of most of the crew. It is commonly—but incorrectly—believed that Arizona remains perpetually in commission, likely because naval vessels entering Pearl Harbor render honors to the remains of the vessel.
• USS Utah (BB-31), a Florida-class battleship which primarily served during World War I and was notable for being sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was used to test various remote control equipment before being turned into a target ship for training Navy dive bombers. Supposedly mistaken by the Japanese for an active ship, she was sunk and attempts to right and refloat her failed. Alongside USS Arizona, she is the only other ship to remain in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the attack. She is also the state ship of Utah.
• USS Enterprise (CV-6), a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, was the most engaged and decorated U.S. warship in World War II, involved in five of the six major carrier-versus-carrier battles of the Pacific Theater, as well as a host of minor engagements, and earning 20 of 22 possible battle stars. She was the only ship outside the British Royal Navy to earn the Admiralty Pennant, the highest award of the British, in the more than 400 years since its creation.
• USS Hornet (CV-8), a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, was best known for launching the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo on 18 April 1942, as well as participating in the pivotal victory at the Battle of Midway.
• USS Gato (SS-212) was the lead ship of her highly successful class of submarine, which, along with the closely related Balao-class submarine and Tench-class submarine, eventually totaled 213 ships. These modern submarines were responsible for most of the destruction 55% of Japan's merchant marine that came about from American submarine attack during World War II. The war against shipping was the single most decisive factor in the collapse of the Japanese economy during the war. The Gato, Balao, and Tench classes also remained the backbone of American underwater fleet well past the ending of the war.
• USS Juneau (CL-52) was an Atlanta-class light cruiser torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-26 at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal 13 November 1942. A total 687 men, including, infamously, all five of the Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, were killed in action as a result of its sinking.
• USS Washington (BB-56) was the only US battleship to sink an enemy battleship in direct combat, when she sank the Japanese battleship Kirishima in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 13 November 1942.
• USS Essex (CV-9) was an aircraft carrier and the lead ship of the twenty four-ship Essex class. The Essex class was the 20th century's most numerous class of capital ships, was the backbone of the U.S. Navy's combat strength during World War II from mid-1943 on, and (along with the addition of the three Midway-class carriers just after the war) continued to be the heart of U.S. Naval strength until the 1960s and 1970s.
• USS England (DE-635) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort that sank six Japanese submarines in twelve days during May 1944, a feat unparalleled in the history of antisubmarine warfare.
• USS Archerfish (SS-311) was a Balao-class submarine best known for torpedoing and sinking the 72,000-ton Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano, the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine, in November 1944.
• USS Batfish (SS-310), a Balao-class submarine that performed the amazing feat of sinking three Japanese submarines in a 76-hour period, in February 1945 during World War II.
• USS Indianapolis (CA-35), a Portland-class cruiser, delivered components of Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in combat, to the US Air Army Air Force base on Tinian island. Upon completion of this secret mission, it was sunk on 30 July 1945 by the Imperial Japanese Navy, leading to the worst loss of life at sea in U.S. Navy history. Approximately 300 sailors of the listed crew of 1,196 died in the attack itself, but of the 880 who survived after, only 316 men lived to be rescued. The men survived four days after suffering from a lack of food, dehydration, exposure, and shark attacks (as referenced in the movie Jaws).
• USS Missouri (BB-63), an Iowa-class battleship, was the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II. She was also the last battleship built by the United States. In 1955, she was decommissioned and assigned to the inactive reserve fleet (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and fought in the 1991 Gulf War. Decommissioned in 1995, she was the last actively serving battleship in the world. She was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association in 1998 and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, moored facing USS Arizona.
• USS Nautilus (SSN-571), a submarine commissioned in 1954, was the world's first nuclear-powered ship. It demonstrated its capabilities by traveling 62,562 miles (100,684 km), more than half of which was submerged, in two years before having to refuel while breaking the record for longest submerged voyage, as well as being the first submarine to transit submerged under the North Pole in 1958.^[22]
• USS Skate (SSN-578), a nuclear-powered submarine commissioned in 1957, was the first ship to physically reach the North Pole when she surfaced there in 1958.
• USS Triton (SSRN-586), a nuclear-powered submarine commissioned in 1959, made the first submerged circumnavigation of the world during its shakedown cruise in 1960, as well as being the only non-Soviet submarine to be powered by two nuclear reactors.
• USS Thresher (SSN-593), the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack submarines and was lost by accident on 10 April 1963.
• USS George Washington (SSBN-598), commissioned in 1959, was the first ever ballistic missile submarine.
• USS Long Beach (CGN-9) was the first nuclear-powered surface warship in the world when she was commissioned in 1961 and signalled a new era of United States naval weaponry by being the first large ship in the Navy to have guided missiles as its main battery.
• USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier when she was commissioned in 1961.
• USS Maddox (DD-731) was an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer that was involved in a skirmish with North Vietnamese torpedo boats on 2 August 1964, known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which served as President Lyndon B. Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces in Vietnam and for the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.
• USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was an intelligence gathering ship involved in an international incident when attacked by Israeli jet fighter planes and motor torpedo boats on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War and while in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula.
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea
  (North Korea) on 23 January 1968. The ship is still under Korean control, and remains in commission to this day.
• supercarriers. Since Nimitz was commissioned on 3 May 1975, these ships have been the centerpiece of American naval power. They are also largest warships ever built,^[23] although they are being eclipsed by the upcoming Gerald R. Ford-class
  aircraft carriers.
• USS Phoenix (CL-46) was a Brooklyn-class light cruiser, present during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and earning nine battle stars for World War II service. Transferred to the Argentine Navy in 1951, she was ultimately renamed ARA General Belgrano in 1956. She was torpedoed and sunk during the Falklands War on 2 May 1982 by the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror, with the loss of 323 lives, or just over half of Argentine deaths in the war. The sinking of General Belgrano was controversial in both Britain and Argentina at the time, and for some, remains so to this day.
• Mirage F1 fighter during the Iran–Iraq War
  becoming the victim of the only successful anti-ship missile attack on a U.S. Navy warship.
• USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) is an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate which struck an Iranian mine on 14 April 1988, severely damaging, and nearly sinking her, resulting in ten injured sailors, but no fatalities. The ship suffered flooding, fires, and a broken keel, which normally is fatal to the ship, but damage control efforts saved the ship. The attack resulted in the launching of Operation Praying Mantis. The ship was repaired and continued active service until it was decommissioned on 22 May 2015.^[24]
• USS Vincennes (CG-49) is a Ticonderoga-class AEGIS equipped guided missile cruiser. On 3 July 1988, the ship shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 civilian passengers on board, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children.
• USS Cole (DDG-67) On 12 October 2000, while at anchor in Aden, Yemen, Cole was attacked by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who sailed a small boat near the destroyer and detonated explosive charges. The blast created a hole in the port side of the ship about 40 feet (12 m) in diameter, killing 17 crew members and injuring 39.
• USS Greeneville (SSN-772) is a Los Angeles-class submarine that, on 9 February 2001, precipitated international controversy when she struck the Japanese fishery high school training ship Ehime Maru (えひめ丸) off the coast of Oahu, causing the fishing boat to sink in less than ten minutes with the death of nine crew members.^[25] The Greeneville was conducting a practice emergency main ballast tank blow as a demonstration to civilian visitors.